Author's Note: Hello!
This was actually spawned from one of the Swooping_is_Bad (5th) Weekly Challenges for Fanart, which I just...don't do. I draw a pretty mean stick figure, but in general am hopeless with drawing-like things. Nevertheless, the idea stuck and this rather angsty view of the PC's Fade Dream just happened.
I never did understand why my Human Noble would have the same dream as my Dalish Elf or Mage, after all. I understand that it would've been a pain in the ass for BioWare to change the short sequence around for each Origin, but I rather thought that was the point of having different Origins to choose from. So I offer up a slightly different dream. Aaanyway, let's be official:
Character: (Aliara) Fem!Cousland, mentions of Alistair and other NPC's of importance
Challenge: "Lost in Dreams: Fade Dreams for either your PC or your party. These can be the canon dreams or your own alternative. (This is a great opportunity to play with the surreal and abstract, comedy and drama, and to draw other characters you are unfamiliar with)"
Words: 1,251
Warnings: Angst, Spoilers for Origin and Mage Tower, hints of supreme yucky.
Disclaimer: Still don't own much of Dragon Age: Origins, but we can dream! (Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk.)
A Definition of Import: Death Knell - noun; 1. a harbinger of the end, death, or destruction of something. 2. Passing bell.
There was a feeling of transportation, faster than any carriage she had ridden in and bright light; Aliara came to in the center of a strangely familiar stone path, overlooking some green...place. She blinked, tried rubbing her eyes, but nothing seemed to clear the blurriness before her, the landscape smudged beyond repair by an errant giant thumb. It was then that Aliara knew, due in part to the uncanny fuzziness clouding her mind and from the muted colors of the stone and the swirling blue motes of wispy cloud - of all things - in the air, that something was distinctly Not Right. Her Warden Senses were tingling, as Alistair loved to put it, grinning adorably even when things were about to get dangerous and bloody.
"Right," she told herself firmly, "stop mooning about Alistair and his bloody smiles. We've got to figure out what precisely is going on here."
"What are you going on about, love?" An amused voice queried from behind her.
That voice. An impossibility, a heart's dearest wish.
Aliara would recognize that voice even if she were struck deaf by the Maker Himself. She closed her eyes, frantically tried to steady herself, to clear her mind of the distracting fog that the hazy light of this place was inflicting upon her. Then it hit her: where was she?
A heavy hand clasped her shoulder, warm and as familiar as her own; she opened her eyes and realized exactly where they were standing, watched as the indistinct landscape formed before her, becoming clear and cruel. Soft laughter floated in the bright garden of Castle Highever and she watched as two figures, one much shorter than the other, played a tender game of tag. She resisted the tugging of that intrusive hand to continue watching, all the heartbreak of the last few weeks melting away as she watched her nephew and sister-in-law roll softly through the grass, faces red with exertion, sweaty, but every wrinkle and hair exactly as she remembered them.
"Oren," Aliara choked, unable to watch as the little boy blew raspberries on his mother's arm. She let herself be pulled into her brother's strong arms, tightening him inescapably in a panicked embrace. She didn't know what was going on, vaguely remembered fighting for her life and facing down something horrific, but this was her brother, beloved Fergus, and he smelled exactly like he'd always smelled; sun-warmed oak, pipe smoke which he only lit in strange parts of the castle so Oriana wouldn't skin his hide, and the indescribable musky scent that was Fergus.
Tears escaped the corners of her eyes, their heat branding her face and Fergus's neck equally, and for a moment he gripped her too tightly, squeezing the breath out of her; she only ever cried on her big brother's shoulder and he never poked fun at her for it, just held her tight until it passed. Everything was exactly as it should be, but why was couldn't she stop crying? "Aliara, by the Maker, what is going on? Are you okay? You were fine just a moment ago, what happened?"
His low worried voice hummed along her scalp and Aliara muffled a hoarse sob against his soaked shoulder. "I…how are you here? How am I here? Ho-how are they…" a sudden spasm constricted her throat with remembered anguish; picking up her adorable Oren's broken body from the floor, clutching him to her chest, unable to vent the furious wail that bubble up from the bottom of her heart because she had to stay strong for her mother, sobbing on the unforgiving stone floor, but also to keep Howe's men from knowing she was alive. Staring at Oriana's body, knowing they couldn't carry both bodies and move as swiftly as necessity dictated.
Memories clamored so loudly for her attention that she heard nothing of Fergus's answer, his soothing words flowing unintelligibly by her overwhelmed ears, but the calm intonation clashed painfully against the death knell in her heart which never stopped ringing – even in her sleep, she heard it, a never-ending nightmare. Only dreams of the Archdemon and darkspawn had ever given her respite from the haunting tintinnabulation, ironic though it was. "Really, love, I promise I'll take a bath if you stop crying," he was grinning against the top of her head and it felt like her heart was being crushed to pieces all over again, stomped by the tiny booted feet of her nephew at play.
"Fergus, this isn't right," her throat was scratchy and her voice reflected that hoarseness all too well as she shakily pushed her brother away. "I'm a Grey Warden, there's a Blight. What are we doing here? I saw th-them dead, Fergus. Where are we?!"
"Love, I don't know what you're imagining, but remember Ostagar? We took care of the Blight then and there. And don't say such things about my wife and child or they may come true, Maker forbid! What is wrong with you?" The man before her looked worried, but through the wet tears caught in her lashes, she swore an unfamiliar light glinted malevolently in his eyes. Aliara felt the cobwebs closing in on her, suffocating her every thought, making her move sluggishly as though she were waking up from yet another bad dream.
The jolt of nervous energy from that epiphany sent cold fear trickling down her spine. "You're not my brother." The words sounded far less sure than they had blazoning in her mind, her voice a traitorous, trembling stranger.
Her companions wouldn't recognize her now, brought low by visions of what she desperately wanted to see but could never be. Oren, looking up at her with glassy eyes and bright smile was dead, tender throat slit by a cruel dagger. His mother, her sister by marriage and love, had tried to defend them both, but her arms were broken in three places and Aliara had tried for weeks to block out the sight of blood caked on the inside of her shift. Fergus…she prayed every night, more than she ever had in her entire life, that he was alive somewhere, but every day she traveled further from the bulk of the darkspawn horde she knew his chances were slimmer, that the bright light of his personality might have already dimmed completely.
Aliara's arm shook as she lifted her sword, the crackling lightning hugging the blade clearing her vision even further until she could raise her shield into a defensive position. "You're not my brother," she whispered again, broken but unable to stand down as the brother she had revered her entire life cast aside the illusion of love and worry and snarled viciously at her. The demon's threats, empty promises, were ignored but the cruel smirk it pasted on Fergus's face just barely gave her the strength to steel her heart for this battle.
The fight was quick, painless but for the easy slide of her sword through Fergus's ribcage; beholding each dying twitch of his face, his limbs, listening to his rasping breaths slow until finally he collapsed gracelessly, a puppet with cut strings, at her feet. Aliara slid with him, boneless and unsteady, to her knees, nearly losing a finger to her blade as she fell forward, violently emptying her stomach beside that broken body. The smells of blood, vomit, and crackling ozone fused together so disgustingly that Aliara was distantly amazed at the realism found in the Fade. "How does one even vomit in a dream?" she whispered darkly to the lifeless shell that cruelly taunted her with her brother's face, frozen in a grotesque grimace of pain.
"Grey Warden" was a title that represented sacrifice before all things, Aliara knew, had learned that lesson all too quickly; but as she stood shaking over the cold – dead, gone, betrayed - shells of her family once again, she wished that for once – just once - she could come out on top, instead of being trampled underfoot by the weight of the world.
Once again, Aliara Cousland turned her back on the corpses of her loved ones to forge her path alone, the only acknowledgment of her loss deep within her heart where a melancholy bell tolled and echoed endlessly in the dark.